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The Hill
a day ago
- Politics
- The Hill
The EPA's know-nothing assault on climate science
Soon after he began his second term, President Trump — who has referred to global warming as 'a make-believe problem' and asked oil executives to contribute $1 billion to his 2024 campaign — issued executive orders expanding coal mining and offshore drilling of oil, blocking enforcement of state and local laws restricting carbon emissions and slashing the budget of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In July, EPA administrator Lee Zeldin moved to rescind the agency's 2009 'endangerment finding' that pollutants from burning fossil fuels constitute a threat to public health. Officials indicated that the decision was based in part on a report of five climate contrarians commissioned by the Department of Energy. Committed to ending regulations on automobile emissions, reducing limits on power plant emissions and releases of carbon dioxide and methane, Zeldin denounced 'people, who in the name of climate change, are willing to bankrupt the country … and basically regulate out of existence a lot of segments of our economy.' The Interior Department is now conducting 'consultations' that cause lengthy delays on permits for wind and solar projects (which produced 16 percent of U.S. electricity in 2024). The Trump administration's assault on what Zeldin called 'climate change religion' is based on demonstrably false assumptions and assertions. Global warming is not 'a hoax.' Temperatures on the surface of the earth and ocean are increasing at alarming rates. The ice sheets are melting, sea levels are rising and catastrophic weather-related events are more frequent. The benefits of addressing climate change, moreover, outweigh costs to the economies of developed and developing countries — and to the welfare of hundreds of millions of people on the planet. Hundreds of studies conducted throughout the world confirm that human activities, especially the burning of fossil fuels, are having an adverse impact on the climate. About 97 percent of climate scientists agree. According to one expert, no new evidence has emerged 'that would in any way challenge the scientific bases of the endangerment finding.' A National Climate Assessment report presents 2,000 pages of evidence that rising temperatures are injurious to health. Research indicates that each increase of a tenth of a degree Celsius moves about 100 million people into 'unprecedented heat exposure.' In the U.S., extreme heat already kills more people than any other 'natural' disaster. Bill McKibben reminds us in his new book 'Here Comes The Sun' that many factors are often omitted when measuring the economic costs of various energy sources. Consider, for example, insurance. Wildfires, hurricanes and floods have caused many insurance companies to stop offering policies for homes in vulnerable areas. The number of homeowners in the U.S. with no insurance, according to a Senate Budget Committee report, increased from 5 percent in 2019 to 12 percent in 2024. Premiums for Americans lucky enough to get a policy are going up 40 percent faster than inflation. A British actuarial society estimated a 50 percent loss of global GDP and dramatic declines in 'critical services' by 2070 if temperatures continue to rise. Far from bankrupting the country, solar, wind and battery power now present cost-effective alternatives to fossil fuels. Noting that oil and coal produce wasted heat and send pollutants into the air, McKibben praises renewables as 'the Costco of energy, inexpensive and available in bulk.' A solar panel produced in 2024 will generate electricity for decades, whereas oil and gas will have to be replenished every few months. In 2024, 92.5 percent of new electricity around the world and 96 percent in the U.S. came from carbon-free energy. California is now using 44 percent less natural gas than it used in 2023. 'In a red-state cocktail party fact,' McKibben reveals that the largest solar panel factory in the Western Hemisphere is located in Marjorie Taylor Greene's Georgia congressional district. Texas, 'the spiritual home of fossil fuel,' will add twice as much clean energy in 2025 than California and Arizona put together. McKibben also cites evidence that renewables are producing more jobs than the more dangerous and dirty jobs lost in coal, oil and gas industries. China, it's worth noting, has seized the moment, and is now 'the Saudi Arabia of sun.' By 2024, seven Chinese companies were producing more energy than the oil industry's once-fabled Seven Sisters. In the last two years, China spent $329 billion on clean technology supply chains, while the U.S. and Europe spent a total of $29 billion. China also dominates the global market for electric vehicles. America can become a worthy competitor. Polls in 2022 indicated that 70 percent of Americans favored renewables over fossil fuels. But it's also possible, McKibben acknowledges, that the U.S., with Trump behind the wheel, will slide backwards into an 'island of internal combustion' and 'global irrelevance.' McKibben — a sometimes optimist who has written 20 books about climate change — concludes that we have one last chance to stop the increase in global warming and 'restart civilization on saner ground, once we've extinguished the fires that now both power and threaten it.' 'It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble,' a saying attributed to Mark Twain goes, 'it's what you know for sure that just ain't so.' With that in mind, here's hoping that with a push from better informed American voters and from the rest of the world, the U.S. will do a 180.
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
John Lennon and Yoko Ono holiday hotel set for demolition
A hotel where John Lennon and Yoko Ono spent a holiday as newly-weds when The Beatles were top of the charts with their final number one before splitting up is in danger of being demolished. The Beatles star and his wife stayed at the Georgian Grade II listed Corbett Arms in the seaside town of Tywyn, Gwynedd, in the summer of 1969 during a turbulent time in the band's history Lennon and Ono were pictured by 13-year-old Alan Finlay, who also washed the superstar's car, while sat in the hotel's garden. The hotel has been shut for a decade, and after attempts to find the owner, the local council has applied for the 19th Century hotel to be knocked down as parts have already collapsed. The Beatles in Bangor: The turning point The long and winding road to The Beatles' break-up Paul McCartney says John Lennon split the Beatles The run-down Corbett Arms, which dates back to the early 1800s, is now a far cry from being the landmark hotel which attracted stars like Lennon and Ono. The Beatles were on a break during the recording of what would become Abbey Road - which includes songs like Come Together, Something and Here Comes The Sun - when Lennon visited north Wales. It was just months after his marriage to Ono in March 1969 and the singer wanted to show his new wife special places that meant a lot to him. They arrived on the north-west Wales coast as The Beatles song about them, The Ballad of John and Yoko, was number one - the 17th time they had topped the UK singles charts. Their visit to Tywyn was also between the recording of Lennon's first solo single Give Peace a Chance, which the pair recorded three weeks earlier in their second week-long anti-war bed-in in Montreal, and its release. The Corbett Hotel's odd-job boy Alan Finlay, then 13, greeted the superstars as they arrived. "Dad would tell us about this real fancy car pulling outside the hotel and John Lennon got out," remembered daughter Gaby, 26. "He was a huge music fan and was like 'oh my god', he couldn't believe it. "John Lennon then asked dad to clean his car. So he did with pride and couldn't believe it when John Lennon paid him, he said he'd have done it for free! But John paid dad quite a lot of money!" According to local folklore they had been turned away from another hotel, the Trefeddian Hotel in nearby Aberdyfi, before spending the night in Tywyn. Gaby's grandmother Jean also worked at the four-storey hotel and said the couple, accompanied by Lennon's six-year-old son Julian and Ono's five-year-old daughter Kyoko Cox, did not have a booking. "They asked to book out the whole top two floors for privacy," added Gaby. "After dad washed the car, he saw them as a family sitting out in the garden and asked them for a picture and they agreed." Welsh rugby fan Alan went on to have three children, worked in the Royal Air Force and later as a mortgage advisor and taxi driver, and was a grandfather when he died aged 69 in 2022. "That was dad's claim to fame, he loved telling people about that story," said Gaby. After a brief pit stop in Wales, Lennon and Ono went on to his home-town of Liverpool and on holiday in Scotland in his white British Leyland Austin Maxi car. "This was downtime for them in a very busy time and it was an attempt to be discreet," said Mark Lewisohn, a historian, biographer and well-respected authority on the Beatles. "But everywhere they went, they were recognised because nobody on the planet looked like John Lennon and Yoko Ono. "Yoko was John's new partner and she wasn't British so he wanted to show her places important and special to him." "He had a life-long affinity to Wales after going there as a child and John Lennon's mother's family had a Welsh connection," Mr Lewisohn said. "He told the South Wales Argus in 1965 that 'Wales seemed full of green grass, beautiful mountains and such friendly people' so he always had a feeling for Wales." Following his UK road trip, Lennon returned to the studio with bandmates Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in the July of 1969 to finish off Abbey Road in what proved to be their last recording session. Lennon then quit what is widely-regarded as the UK's most famous and successful band in the September, days before Abbey Road's release. "At no point when the picture in Tywyn was taken was John thinking The Beatles were going to break up," added Mr Lewisohn. "But he wasn't adverse to it because what he thought about The Beatles and what we thought about The Beatles were two different things." Lennon and Ono's visit to north Wales was just days before Prince Charles' investiture as the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle in the north of the county. The couple sent a postcard of the 20-year-old prince to Starr and his family to the Apple offices in London, containing the simple message: "Hello". That postcard, bearing the postmark of Tywyn and dated 23 June 1969, was included in drummer's 2004 book Postcards From The Boys. From hello, it could be goodbye to the Corbett Arms for good unless help is found to save the once grand building that was described by locals as the "gateway into the town". It could be demolished within months because it is dilapidated and unsafe, with parts of it having already collapsed. The Corbett Arms is considered one of the UK's most endangered buildings, according to conservation charity SAVE Britain's Heritage. Campaigners, including Catherine Evans who remembers Lennon's visit to her home-town, want this important part of Tywyn's history to be saved. "The history is unbelievable, going back to the 1800s, and it's a shame it got to this state and pulled down when it could have been saved," added Ms Evans, whose parents both worked at the Corbett Arms. The local authority has issued 11 notices to force repair works by the owner but emergency demolition now seems likely in order to protect public safety. Scaffolding has been put up to secure the building with an application in place for listed building consent to carry out the demolition work. "We understand the significance of this historic building and concerns of the local community," said Gareth Jones, of Cyngor Gwynedd. "However, the condition of the building has deteriorated to a point where immediate action is now required to protect public health and safety. Sadly there is no other option."
